The Missing
by You-Just-Might
Summary: ONE-SHOT: "You see, being a spy doesn't mean you think of the people around you as spies. You consider that you may die at any time, but you never consider that your friends might as well. " Liz died. Glass fell in a warehouse, guns fired, feet kicked, and Liz screamed. But after a death comes a funeral and Cammie isn't sure she can make it through one without finally breaking. R


_"Only the dead have seen the end of war."  
— Plato__  
_

Zach helps me dress, holding out my dress for me to step into, and then zipping it up for me. It isn't necessary, but I don't object. He guides me to his bed, forcing me to sit down, and slides my shoes onto my feet. Once he's done, Zach sits down next to me, pulling me against him so that we fit together perfectly.

"I don't think I can do this," I murmur into Zach's shoulder.

"I know," he answers dully, "but you have to. We both have to."

"Why?" I ask, suddenly angry. I shrug out of his grasp and stand, pacing. "Why the hell should we have to do one more thing? We have done enough! I just want to be done, Zach." I stop pacing just as abruptly as I'd started, and sink to the floor. "She didn't deserve this," I say brokenly. "She didn't deserve to die. Today shouldn't be her funeral. I shouldn't be wearing a black dress and crying over her, she should be the one crying over me! Lizzy shouldn't have died!"

"What? And you should have?"

"Yes!"

Zach sighs, and moves to sit next to me. He kisses me gently. "Nobody should have died, Gallagher Girl. Nobody deserved to die…, but Liz did die. Cam, she died and she didn't deserve to, but she did deserve to have her best friend at her funeral."

I nod, resolving myself to that fact. I count to five silently, then straighten my shoulders and stand. I have to be strong. I cross to the closet where I know Zach has hidden some weapons.

"Uh…, what are you doing?" Zach asks me, getting to his feet.

I hold up a knife, already in its sleeve. "Arming myself," I answer. "Where is the strap for this?"

"We're going to a CIA funeral. I don't think you need to show up armed, Cam."

"You're right, I don't. But I'm going to anyways."

"Why?"

"You've been around for the past few months, right? How has our luck been?"

Zach heaves a sigh and slides open a desk drawer. He tosses me the strap for the knife.

"Exactly," I say. I move back towards his bed and reach under it, pulling two bags out. One bag is Zach's, one bag is mine. They're both fully stocked in weapons, MRE's, and clothing so that we can run if we have to. I unzip my bag and take out what looks like a laptop case, but is actually my weapons supplies.

"Now what?" Zach asks me.

I hold up a small pistol. "Just in case," I say.

"Seriously? Cam, we took down the Circle, who is going to try to kill us?"

I glare at him. "The Circle kil—" I break off, then restart. "The Circle killed Liz," I get out. "Her funeral would be a great place for those still loyal to the Circle to retaliate, and I'm not taking any chances."

"Point taken," Zach says, "but where are you going to put a gun. That dress is too tight for you to conceal anything other than a knife."

I glare at him again, and stand up. "Unzip me?" I request.

"Why?"

"Unzip me and I'll show you," I answer.

"Fine," Zach answers, moving my hair aside and unzipping the dress he did up minutes ago.

I step out of it and riffle around in my bag for a holster I bought while I was on the run. "Got it," I say triumphantly, holding up the holster.

"Great. Now then, not that I don't appreciate _this_," he gestures to me to elaborate, "but we are going to be late, Cam, so hurry up please."

I glare at him as I secure the knife I had gotten earlier to the inside of my thigh. I jump up and down a little bit to make sure it's secure. "Help me with this, please," I tell Zach, holding up the gun holster. It looks a bit like an odd version of a bra and goes on the same way. Zach does it up for me, while I slide my pistol into its slot. I sits just under my bra.

"Cammie!" Macey's voice trails off as she bursts into the room. She stares at us for a moment, eyes cataloguing the weapons attached to my body, then shakes her head, obviously deciding not to ask. "Cam, your mom is in our room waiting for you. We told her you left early this morning to go spend some time in the passageways—you know, really sad about Liz and everything. She bought it, but if she finds out you spent the night here, she is going to lose it."

I sigh. Today sucks. Macey looks just as bad as I'm sure I do. Her eyes are slightly red, and she looks exhausted. Anybody else would have huge dark circles under their eyes (and I'm sure I do), but Macey is very good with make-up. Instead of dark circles and a snappy attitude caused by sleepless nights, she radiates a type of exhaustion that makes her look far older than her 17 years.

"Macey, are you alright?" I ask her.

"I'll be fine. How about you two?"

"We'll survive," Zach and I answer in unison.

Macey nods. "Put on some clothes and then come up to the room," she tells me before leaving the room.

I step into my dress and Zach does it up for me. "You can't even see the gun," he says wonderingly.

"Yeah. The joys of being female," I say dryly.

I help Zach into his suit, doing his tie up for him before we both make our way up to my room. The closer we get, the slower I move. This isn't something I want to do. I don't want to leave the comfort of Zach's room to go to a funeral. I don't want to be question by my mother as she tries to decide what my mental state is.

But I have to, so I keep moving, Zach's hand in mine.

He pushes open the door to the suit that Macey, Bex, and I share. Liz's bed stands empty, her possessions in boxes at the foot of it. I've been avoiding this room since she died. I sleep with Zach now, and he fights off the nightmares with me when I wake up screaming. I don't know how Bex and Macey stay here. I don't think they really do either. The only time they spend in this room now is when they sleep, but I don't think that I can go to sleep looking at an empty bed. In fact, I know that I can't, which is why I don't try to anymore.

"Hey, Mrs. Morgan," Zach says.

"Hello, Zach. Hi, Cammie."

"Hey, Mom. What are you doing in here?"

"I wanted to make sure that you are okay."

"I'm alright."

"Mhm," Mom says, obviously not convinced. "Macey says you were in the passageways. Was Zach with you?"

"No," I lie as smoothly as possible. "I bumped into him on my way up here, so he came with me."

Mom nods and gets up from the edge of my bed. "I'm here for you, Cammie," she tells me, kissing my cheek. She opens the door and then turns back. "That goes for all of you girls, and you too, Zach. I'm here if any of you needs anything." The door slams shut as she leaves, a gust of wind from the open windows pushing it shut.

I sink onto the edge of my bed, Zach, Macey and Bex sitting beside me. Together we sit, shoulder to shoulder, staring at Liz's empty bed.

Finally, I stand, swallowing the ball of grief in my throat. "We should get going," I say. "Lizzy would have been punctual if it were one of us."

* * *

The backseat of Liz's mini-van is covered in old magazines, candy wrappers, and notes written in her hand writing. I bite my lip to keep from crying.

"How fast is this thing up to?" Bex asks Zach, who we collectively decided is the least likely person to crash the car today.

He smiles sadly as he answers. "600 miles per hour," he says. "When the hell did she get it up so high? Better yet, how?"

"I think she mentioned something about special engine parts she and Dr. Fibs were designing. Also tires," I say absently. "I wasn't really paying attention." I would now. I would take notes on everything she said so that I wouldn't forget once she was gone, like I have now. But I didn't forget, because I never knew. That's the worst part, the worst part by far.

Zach drives fast, and soon we are arriving at the gates of the cemetery Liz's family picked to bury their daughter in. I climb out of Liz's van, patting the side of it as I walk away. Nobody else is out of the van yet, but I have spotted two people in black.

I move to the woman, placing my hand lightly on her shoulder to signal my presence. "Mrs. Sutton?" I say gently. I know the grief I see in her eyes well. It is the type that clouds your thoughts until you can't think of anything else—until there is a deep fog between you and the rest of the world.

Lizzy's mother starts, jumping a little bit. She turns around slowly. "Cammie," she says. She pulls me into a hug. "How are you, dear?"

"I'll be okay. How are you?"

"Well, I'm here."

I nod, understanding why she looks so sad as she says the words. _No, not sad. Guilty, _I think to myself. I can relate. We're here, and Liz isn't. At the same time, Mrs. Sutton's words probably meant both that she's here and Liz isn't, and that she made it here today, so that's a good thing.

"I'm really sorry, Mrs. Sutton," I tell her.

"Cammie, you don't have to apologize. Liz did what she thought was right. She died to help you, and for something she believed in. Also, Cammie, I can see you are hurting just as much as I am. So let me tell you that _I _am sorry." She pats my cheek and gives me a watery smile before turning away. As she does, I can see the veil go up over her eyes. The fog has returned.

"Gallagher Girl," Zach says, touching my elbow, "come and sit down with us."

I slide my hand into his and let him lead me towards four seats next to a gaping hole in the ground that will be filled by Lizzy soon. I want to laugh. The hole is so big. Liz will never fill it all—the girl had to get double zero jeans taken in. However, laughter is inappropriate for the occasion (regardless of the fact that today should be, in theory, a celebration of Liz's life). Inappropriate laughter is something I have found to be a side effect of grief. Sometimes it's either laugh or cry. Personally, I hate to cry. At this moment in time though, it seems I am always on the verge off doing so.

Other guests file into the cemetery in a steady trickle. The entire Gallagher student body arrives about thirty minutes after we did, sweeping into the cemetery in black dresses with E=MC2 pins attached to them. The Gallagher faculty files in after the students, also dressed in black with E=MC2 pins. The sight brings tears to my eyes, but I blink them away quickly.

Liz's parents and sister, Ellie, sit near where we are. Ellie arrived after we did, walking up the lane and to her parents. She came here with them, but sat in the car until she was ready to come up. I try not to look at her because it sends a pang through my chest. She has the same curly hair as Liz, the same build, the same face. I remember Liz telling me that Ellie wanted to come to Gallagher next year. Liz didn't want her to because she thought it was too dangerous.

I guess she was right.

I sit rigid in my seat, clenching Zach's hand in mine, as we wait for the funeral to begin. All I can think about, around and around in my head is the scream I heard in that warehouse six days ago. All I can see is curly blonde hair turned red with blood. I watch Liz die, over and over again in my mind while I sit.

Zach nudges me after a few minutes, bringing me back to the present. "It's starting, baby," he whispers in my ear.

A pastor from the CIA steps up to the side of Liz's grave. "We are gathered here today," he starts, "to celebrate the life of Elizabeth Sutton, and to mourn her death. Before we begin with the service laid out in your programs, which can be found under your seats, would anybody like to say a few words about Elizabeth?"

There is silence for a few moments, and then Ellie Sutton stands up. Her parents stare at her, obviously not expecting her to have anything to say, but she ignores their shocked expression as she makes her way towards the spot the pastor has just vacated.

"Liz is… was… my sister. When she was my age, she was accepted to a school called the Gallagher Academy for Extraordinary Young Women. Although all of you here have known what type of school Gallagher really is for quite some time, my family and I only found out just how extraordinary the young women who go there are when a CIA agent knocked on our door in the middle of the night six days ago.

"Now we know that Liz was training to be a spy. We know that she could speak fourteen languages fluently, although we only ever heard her speak one. We know that she could disarm a bomb and kill a man twice her size, using only a spaghetti noodle. We know that she loved her time a Gallagher. We know that since the seventh grade, Liz has been happier than she ever was before.

"Liz was always smart. Nobody in my family was ever a spy before her, and she got into Gallagher on her own, just by using her brain. We were told that Liz wasn't training to be a field agent. They said she spent her time in the labs, developing ways to keep other people safe. She died to keep other people safe, which I'm pretty sure wasn't something she had in mind. That said, I think my sister would have been happy with her death. I think she would have been proud of it. She died for her friends. She died for her family. The CIA agent who came to our house that night told us to be proud, 'she died for her country', he said. No. She died for the people who she was fighting beside, because she loved them, and because she believed in them.

"That is who my sister was. She was a person who loved, and laughed, and lived. And yes, she was a person who died, but everybody dies someday. However, not everybody dies for something they believe in, and not everybody dies with the same kind of love they give returned to them. Looking out at all of you right now, I can see with 100% certainty that you all loved her as much as she loved you." I wipe a tear from my cheek and stare at Ellie. I swear she is staring right back at me. "Please don't blame yourself for Liz's death," she says. "None of you are at fault. Don't remember Liz as she was in death. Remember her in life, because her life was better than most."

More people go up to the grave to speak, my mother, and Liz's mother among them. Ellie's words ring in my ears though, and I'm not really paying attention. How am I not at fault? It was my mission. I sent out our GPS coordinates in the distress signal. I hatched thee plan to take down the Circle. My hands may as well have been the ones to kill her. I sent her crashing through that roof. I sent her all the way to Paris to save me and Zach from a death that had been chasing me for over a year. Yet she was the one to die so that I could live and the Circle could be brought down.

Suddenly the pastor is asking if anybody else has something to say and I am standing up, walking towards Liz's grave and her flower covered casket. I stand in the place the pastor was a moment ago, just like Liz… no, Ellie, did. I stare out into the sea of faces, some familiar, some unfamiliar, but all marked by the same grief. I try to think of something to say. Finally, I shrug out of a sweater I put on at some point since we got here and let it fall to the ground.

"See these scars?" I ask, lifting my arms so that everybody can see the marks Catherine left on them. "They were made by awful things. Things designed only to bring pain. The woman who put them there wanted to break me. She wanted a list of names out of my head. Names that I didn't even know were in my head to begin with. Her name was Catherine. Catherine Goode.

"She had me once, and when I came back to Gallagher, I wasn't the same. I had learned to kill, I had learned to hurt, and I had learned how to be hurt. I thought I knew everything there was to know on how to be hurt. My friends tried to patch me back together again. Liz became my personal nurse, teaching me about EEG's and PET's. She bothered doctors until they let her look at my file, she talked to my therapist, but he turned out to be a asshole who was working with Catherine. When he told me to jump off a roof, I almost did. Liz stopped me. She climbed onto the roof after me and I ended up having to throw her to Bex Baxter to save her life. She broke the trance I was in, gave my mother and Bex an opening to get me off the roof, and saved my life in the process.

"When I was captured by Catherine, Liz took up baking as a distraction. When I got back to Gallagher, I discovered that she really sucked at baking. However, she was amazing at making ice-cream using the liquid nitrogen in the labs. We did that on the bad days—went down to the labs and made ice-cream via chemical reactions. Lately, even though most of our bad days have become bad weeks, and bad months, and bad years, we haven't had the chance to go down to the labs so that we could make ice-cream. Instead we laughed in the moments that were funny, and cried in the ones that were sad, and worried about each other, and smiled, and joked around, and tried to be normal teenagers—or at least as normal as a teenager at a spy school can get. I never thought that one of my friends wouldn't live to see graduation.

"You see, being a spy doesn't mean you think of the people around you as spies. You consider that you may die at any time, but you never consider that your friends might as well. Maybe that's naïve, especially as a person whose father, a spy, died as a side-effect of his profession and a couple of names on a list. I know how easy it is for somebody to be torn from you. I have heard that knock on my door in the middle of the night; my mother received that phone call. Still, how do you keep moving if you're always focusing on the worst-case-scenario? So you don't think about it and you try to keep living.

"You see, being a spy doesn't mean you think of the people around you as spies. You consider that you may die at any time, but you never consider that your friends might as well. Maybe that's naïve, especially as a person whose father, a spy, died as a side-effect of his profession and a couple of names on a list. I know how easy it is for somebody to be torn from you. I have heard that knock on my door in the middle of the night; my mother received that phone call. Still, how do you keep moving if you're always focusing on the worst-case-scenario? So you don't think about it and you try to keep living.

"Liz was the best person I knew. She didn't deserve to die. Out of all of us, she was the one who should have lived. She should have gotten to graduate, and get married, and have children, and grow old, but she isn't going to. We are going to. And try as I might I cannot figure out how that is even remotely fair. Liz isn't going to be here to see tomorrow. She is never again going to wake up in the morning and go to eat breakfast. That isn't fair, I guess.

"I've seen a lot of death lately. I've even caused some of it. I've seen a lot of pain, and suffering, and hate. I've lain awake at night, unable to sleep with the weight of grief, and the guilt, and the hurt that it has caused weighing down on my chest. Until six days ago," I say, "I thought I knew all there is to know about pain. I didn't think anything could ever make me hurt more than I already have. I was wrong. This hurt is so much worse than any I've ever known before and a large part of me wants to let it drag me to the ground. I won't let it do that, though. Liz would have strangled me if I let it. Now then," I add as an afterthought, "she probably wouldn't have succeeded—she once got her hair tangled in my shoe laces in the P&E barn after all—but she would have gotten her point across." This gets a few laughs from people assembled in front of me. "God, I'm going to miss her," I choke out, feeling like I'm going to start crying, so I return to my seat

I don't really remember what I just said, but I know that I meant every word. Zach takes my hand and I lean my head against his shoulder, taking comfort in the strength I can feel running through him like a current.

As the pastor speaks, I begin to cry. I can't stop myself. My shoulders shake and I bury my face in Zach's jacket, letting myself grieve. My tears fall silently, and only Zach notices I am crying at all. He runs his hand up and down my back soothingly until the tears stop. I wipe my eyes and sit up again, somehow feeling lighter and more like myself.

That night, after the funeral, and the reception, and the hugs, and the grief, I find myself where I have been every night since we got back to Gallagher: between Zach's sheet, his arms wrapped around me, both of us speaking in quiet tones before we go to sleep. I roll over so that I can face Zach as he talks.

"What you said today was brave," Zach tells me.

"Was it?" I ask him, genuinely wanting to know the answer. "I just thought it was honest."

"I have a theory that they're the same thing," Zach says, kissing me.

I kiss him back. "Do you think she's forgiven me?" I ask him suddenly, pulling away so that I can look at his eyes.

"Who? Liz?"

I nod.

"Gallagher Girl, Liz loved you. Like Ellie said today, she didn't go into that warehouse because it was full of Circle leaders, she went into it because it had the two of us there. The Circle leaders were just the added bonus. Liz died doing what she trained to do. She died doing what she believed in. Believe me, Cam, there was nothing that happened that night to make her need to forgive you."

"Really?" I ask him.

"Really."

I sigh. "I want her back, Zach. I want my friend back."

"I know," Zach says, pulling me closer. "I want her back too."

We stay like that for a while before I move again. "I love you," I tell Zach.

"I love you too," he answers. "And so did she."

* * *

**A/N: Hi! So this story is a one-shot of Liz's funeral (obviously). I wrote it to take place just after her death in my story, In The End. Throughout this, I tried to take you through some of the levels of grief I know most people have felt at some point in their life or another. Please review if you liked this, or if you didn't. I would love to hear feedback.**

**XOXO ~ You-Just-Might**

**P.S: Thanks to WolfGirl745 for suggesting I do a one-shot of Liz's funeral. I hoped you liked it.**


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